Writing with Substance
In the aftermath of the XPRIZE writing contest I have been wondering about the substance of fiction writing, about how stories resonate through a life, about their importance. The four part format that I came up with to evaluate writing seems to be useful for writing as well: subject, structure, style, substance. It's that last one that has a few questions bouncing around inside my head. When you read great writers like J. K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, or C. S. Lewis you encounter ideas, concepts, and situations that can lead you to new questions and realizations. Their writing has a resonance to it that can reverberate throughout your life, or, to put it another way, it has substance. Writing without that substance seems kind of boring to me. I've read some of those books, but usually only if they were light, I needed a break from the heavy stuff, and they involved something I like (for instance, the Percy Jackson books). The question becomes, how do I write with th